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Let's talk about abuse of the report feature

I can't keep up with multiple threads, so I'm going to consolidate the information here. I am happy to answer questions in this thread; however, I cannot look up everyone's account and provide comments about their account's behavior history. If you have a legitimate, reasonable request, I'll look into a few accounts here and there.

Quick FAQ

1) What happened?
a) A small group of players were identified as abusers of the report feature--many of these players had repeatedly created negative experiences for others by consistently reporting players for infractions that were reviewed as unwarranted while also harassing the same players in-game.

2) What actions did Riot take?
a) In this small group of players, we decided to make their reports have 0 power. In addition, we looked for players who were in this group and also recently displayed toxic behavior in their games or had a Tribunal history and gave them an additional 7-day ban. This was the worst 0.2% of these players which ended up being a few thousand players per territory.

3) Why did they not receive a verbal warning?
a) When we reviewed the players who were in the bottom 0.2%, many of these players had already been warned multiple times by the Tribunal and had not reformed their behaviors. We felt that the severity of their offenses and the extreme abuse of the report feature warranted immediate action. We could have waited for the Tribunal to ban most of these players, but we felt that expedited action was necessary.

4) Were these players banned for excessive reporting?
a) No. These players were also toxic in their recent games and the severity of their offenses warranted an expedited penalty.

5) I am scared to report. What should I do in my games?
a) If you use the report button responsibly, you never have anything to worry about. Remember, reporting someone is telling Riot that you feel that this player does not belong in the community. It's a very serious tool to use and we take it very seriously when a player is reported. The players given 7-day timeouts had often reported over 1000x more than a typical player and used reports to bully, threaten or otherwise create negative experiences for hundreds of others.

6) Were any innocent players banned?
a) Systems are not perfect. We aimed for a 0.1% false positive rate which is a standard that is 10x higher than medical standards, but this means there's a handful of players that potentially did not deserve the additional 7-day penalty. Our Player Support staff is ready to assist in these false positives.

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Our Player Support teams actually sweep accounts for toxic behaviors on a frequent basis and we've empowered them to hand out direct bans as necessary without prior warnings if they catch players displaying excessive racism, bigotry, or other toxic behaviors in their matches. We use these sweeps to determine whether we are doing enough for our community and to check the accuracy and speed of systems such as the Tribunal and LeaverBuster. The Tribunal is just one piece of the solution to player behavior, but we realized we need to do more.

We've been receiving a lot of complaints from our community about how the act of reporting has created a more toxic environment for other players; players will write in about having a poor game and someone screaming profanities at them and threatening them with reports and bans.

Because of these complaints, we decided to run analyses and metrics against some of the players who reported the highest number of players in the game (after normalizing for games played and all that fun math stuff). We found something a bit surprising and a bit shocking. There were some players that had reported over 1000 times more players than the average player in the population! In addition, these players were often extremely toxic in their games and had repeated cases that were punished in the Tribunal. When we analyzed chat logs in this population, we noticed that they were using reports in an offensive and abusive manner. For example, these players would often say "Enjoy your report f@ggot!" or "everyone in this game, plz report this n*gger." Not all players behaved in this way, but these players were consistently negative towards their teammates in their matches and often tried to convince others to report someone in the game. Many of these players reported for issues (such as playing a poor game) that were not legitimate according to Riot staff standards.

The decision we made today was not easy. It was actually quite sad and a bit depressing for me. We knew that we had never banned for something like this in the past; however, as we dug into the data more, we realized how toxic these players were to their teammates and their opponents and we knew that a verbal warning would not be enough.

These are players that were abusing our report feature and using it as a tool to bully, criticize and frustrate other players in the game. These players that try to get decent players banned from the game! Many of these players already had Tribunal histories and already had their report weights set to 0, but we felt that these acts were distinct enough that an additional punishment was warranted because the Tribunal was not designed to combat abusive reporting.

For many of these players, we simply removed the power of their reports; however, today, we decided to give an additional 7-day timeout to players who were the worst 0.2% of players who abused the report feature and had displayed toxic behavior in their recent matches.

The bans were harsh, I agree. But, we felt they were warranted given the level of abuse these players were involved with. I will continue to answer questions in this thread, let's keep it constructive.

My main account is AlexDnD - you've responded once but not again when I asked for clarification.

I was suspended. I felt like I reformed to the best of my knowledge I maybe played 4 or 5 games. This happened within the last few days. Did you re-ban my account based on statistics and information (including the supposed toxic "recent" behavior) from prior to my suspension or after my suspension?

A general question - Why so vindictive? Why not just disable the reporting feature for the people who report falsely? Why not just WARN people this could happen? Why do it this way? This seems like deliberate provocation.

I don't think that many players realize that because of the age demographic of this game, people have been extensively using the report feature as a weapon of spite, rather than a tool to improve the community. A measure like this was never going to work for all players, since a minority with a high number of valid reports would be caught up in the crossfire, but for the majority of high volume reporters that abuse the feature, this is a good wake up call.

People that were using the tool as it was intended will continue to do so, and those that were abusing it out of malice, will start threads in GD then stop abusing it.

So Lyte. Sometimes I get really angry in game at people with no map awareness and when i comment on their behavior (which may or may not be derogatory) I always get the same response (stfu noobs I know what I'm f***in doing and you arent helping).

I often reply "Muted and reported" to which I get "what a pu*s%" or some such response. Often times I don't actually mute them because I'd like to see their pings but this stops them from addressing me directly bc they assume I muted them. I understand that sometimes I'm contributing to the problem but I would like to know if this is what you are handing out bans for (I was not banned this time around). I don't even always report them if they chill out or I realize that they started trying to improve.

So long question is really "Is the behavior I described what you are banning for and do I do it too much?"

Edit: Thanks for the answer Lyte. I will try to no longer provoke by telling my teammates I plan to mute or report them and just perform the action when necessary.